A boy enters the check out line at the Cardenas Market in Riverside on Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2016. Cardenas Markets plans to stock healthier snacks and drinks in its checkout aisles in the future. The Ontario-based grocery chain wants people to have the option of healthier foods as impulse buys rather than just candy and soda.

Easy accessible snacks are available to customers in the check out lines at Cardenas Market in Riverside on Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2016. Cardenas Markets plans to stock healthier snacks and drinks in its checkout aisles in the future. The Ontario-based grocery chain wants people to have the option of healthier foods as impulse buys rather than just candy and soda.

Alejandra Padilla hates waiting in the supermarket checkout line with her three kids.

The 26-year-old Riverside resident has a tough time explaining that the gum, candy and other tempting treats displayed there for impulse buying aren’t good for them.

“The kids are always wanting to get the candy,” said Padilla, who was shopping at a Cardenas market on La Sierra Avenue in Riverside. “It would be nice if they had apple slices.”

Cardenas Markets, an Ontario-based grocery chain geared toward Latino shoppers, is responding to the wishes of Padilla and other customers seeking healthier grab-and-go food before they exit the store.

Across Southern California, some Latino-oriented markets are experimenting with healthier checkout lines, at which customers can purchase water, fruit and trail mix instead of junk food.

“That’s a great idea,” said Riverside resident Celestina Stephens, who was buying papaya and cabbage with her two kids a few aisles away. “You should see that more often. You don’t want your kids to gravitate to the candy and the junk.”

Experts say healthy eating can help reduce cases of obesity and diabetes, conditions that are worse among low-income individuals, Latinos and other people of color, studies show.

Three-fourths of Latinos in Riverside County and 77 percent in San Bernardino County are overweight or obese — higher numbers than the overall population, 2014 data from both counties show.

Candy bar temptation

“What we know is consumers tend to buy what’s in front of them,” said Harold Goldstein, executive director of Public Health Advocates, a Davis-based nonprofit group. “If those candy bars are taunting us at the checkout stand, we human beings find it difficult to not give in.”

Cardenas plans to stock some checkout aisles at its more than two dozen locations in Riverside and San Bernardino counties with low-sodium, low-sugar snacks in coming weeks and months, spokesman Marco Robles said. Also, Anaheim-based Northgate Gonzalez Markets, whose clientele is largely Latino, plans to unveil transformed checkout lines at one or two stores next month.

Representatives for El Super, Rio Ranch and Superior markets, which also cater to Inland Latinos, could not be reached for comment.

Cardenas is looking to add more water, seeds, nuts and granola bars to its checkout lanes as part of a strategy aimed at improving health conditions of Latinos and other shoppers.

This year, Cardenas started a “Vida, Salud y Sabor” (Life, Health and Flavor) campaign with weekly online deals and mailers sent to 1.5 million homes near its stores. Featured discounts include lean ground beef, skinless chicken and organic Italian squash.

Its stores also have healthy food samples and classes that teach people how to prepare meatless tamales with low-fat oil instead of lard.

“It’s part of a bigger concept and evolution that is already underway,” Robles said. “Ultimately, it’s going to be a broader emphasis and it will be very diverse at different locations of the store.”

‘A new movement’

Cardenas and other retailers are getting help from Riverside County health officials.

The county recently launched a Healthy Aisle Initiative that expands on long-standing efforts to promote nutrition at Cardenas and other stores. The program now includes nutrition information booths, signs, fruit and veggie fests, free recipe books and cooking demonstrations.

Details of the new campaign are being worked out, but could include additional signs and displays promoting healthy food along with messages on cash register monitors. Additionally, officials plan to recommend placing nutritious items in more prominent locations at checkout, the ends of aisles and at eye level to grab customers’ attention.

“This is slowly becoming a new movement,” said Valerie Comeaux, coordinator of the nutrition education and obesity prevention program for Riverside University Health System, which includes the county’s public health department.

San Bernardino County doesn’t have a healthy checkout aisle program, but it may add one within the next year as part of a new effort to recognize stores that promote nutrition.

San Bernardino County officials already work with retailers on signs encouraging nutritious eating, as well as on healthy food and beverage demonstrations, said Teslyn Henry-King, coordinator for the county public health nutrition program.

“Aisles such as this help make the healthy choice the easy choice,” Henry-King said. “You don’t have to think about it. You grab it, you go and it’s the norm.”

While selling junk food at checkout aisles may be good for companies’ bottom lines, public health advocates say the practice is contributing to Americans’ bulging waistlines.

“It leads to this phenomenon where food is ubiquitous,” said Jessica Almy, an attorney at the Center for Science in the Public Interest in Washington, D.C., and co-author of a report titled “Temptation at Checkout.” “You’re surrounded by food. It wears you down. People shouldn’t have to face calories everywhere they go in their day.”

With an average wait time of 3 1/2 to five minutes to check out at stores, Almy said, consumers are captive audiences, primed to let down their guard after making a series of choices while shopping.

Almy said retailers may be reluctant to reduce junk food because they receive placement fees from candy, chip and soda manufacturers.

Soaring sales

Riverside County officials expect to have a hard time getting rid of unhealthy food at checkout lines.

“Those large vendors are a challenge to compete with,” Comeaux said. “We may not be able to get those items removed or placed in a different location in the store. Hopefully we can come up with innovative ways to still achieve our goals.”

Another challenge is finding space on the checkout shelves for food that is healthy and less perishable, said Susan Babey, senior research scientist and co-director of the chronic disease program at the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research.

“To the extent the impulse food buys switch from unhealthy to healthy food choices is a step in the right direction,” Babey said.

In addition to grocery chains, the county also helped mom-and-pop markets on Riverside’s Eastside get more energy efficient chilled cases to hold fresh produce and to create signs, murals and other advertising to let people know they sell fruit and vegetables.

La Michoacana market on Victoria Avenue participated in the Eastside Healthy Eating Active Living — or HEAL — Zone program, which encourages residents to be more diet and fitness conscious.

Jason Awad, whose family has owned the market for eight years, said sales of tomatoes, chilies, avocados, cilantro and onions have soared because of the improved refrigeration system that keeps produce fresh longer.

Awad said he’s willing to set aside space next to the cash register for healthy snacks shoppers can buy on the way out. The store also plans to display fruits and vegetables outside to entice customers as they enter.

Goldstein of Public Health Advocates wants to see the healthy checkout concept expanded to every supermarket in the country.

“Let’s make sure that grocery stores are making their money selling healthy things rather than seducing us to buy foods and beverages that make us sick,” he said.

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